BUDAPEST, Hungary — A yr in the past, Trey Hardee discovered himself alone in a resort room, hitting all-time low.
Struggling to deal with the realities of life within the aftermath of a profitable observe profession, the daddy of three, a two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist within the decathlon, was enthusiastic about ending his life.
“I read my journal entry from that night,” the 39-year-old informed The Associated Press in telephone interviews this summer season from Austin, Texas, the place he lives. “I don’t know who that was.”
His darkest second got here in July 2022 finally yr’s world championships in Oregon, as he was gearing up for one more day in his function as a TV analyst. At this yr’s world championships, which open Saturday in Hungary, Hardee will once more be behind the microphone, however far more at peace, and hoping his story may function a cautionary story for the a whole lot of athletes who battle with psychological well being.
“I went and sought out counseling and figured out a way to mature in that relationship I had with it,” he mentioned of his 14-year aggressive decathlon profession that resulted in 2017.
Hardee’s story isn’t unfamiliar to world-class athletes who retire. Often, they don’t know what to do subsequent. In Hardee’s case, these questions had been exacerbated by one thing he didn’t understand within the days, weeks and even years after his retirement grew to become official: In his rush to maneuver onto “normal life,” he’d forgotten to present his profession the becoming sendoff it deserved.
“I never grieved the loss of it, in the same way that you might grieve the loss of a loved one,” Hardee mentioned. “Without that process, without doing any of that, it was like a wound and a disease that just went untreated for me for five years. I spent the entirety of my third, fourth, fifth year after retirement really struggling and really feeling ashamed and not knowing why. I was ashamed of being ashamed.”
Telling the world about such a factor, even years after the very fact, is a comparatively new phenomena amongst elite athletes. For many years, so many feared that revealing any misgivings about their psychological well-being could possibly be perceived as an indication of weak point – to opponents, to coaches, to individuals who made selections about who goes on Olympic groups.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos it wrought in lots of Olympic athletes’ lives performed an enormous function in shifting that dynamic. Simone Biles, Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson are among the many high-profile athletes whose paths have been essentially altered due to psychological well being. All have been unafraid to acknowledge their actuality.
“It’s OK to not be OK,” was the mantra spelled out by Biles and others after the gymnast shockingly withdrew from the crew all-around on the Tokyo Olympics two years in the past.
Hardee mentioned the latest loss of life of Olympic gold medalist Tori Bowie hit particularly arduous. The 32-year-old champion sprinter, who died alone at residence of childbirth issues in April, had a historical past of mental-health points – her bipolar dysfunction was listed on her post-mortem report. Hardee knew Bowie from being on the identical groups and used to speak to her at picture shoots.
“It’s just a heavy, heavy sadness,” Hardee mentioned.
Jess Bartley, the director of psychological well being for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, mentioned regardless of some important shifts within the public’s perspective, there’s nonetheless “tremendous stigma” connected to psychological well being.
She mentioned serving to athletes navigate retirement, each earlier than and after they cling it up, is among the many most necessary missions her division tackles.
“There’s a lot of information and research coming out around the fact that, in the back of your mind, you might actually be worried about” retirement, she mentioned. “So why would you not think about retiring? Why would you not think about how your skills are transferable” when you retire?
In his early 30s and with one baby – he and spouse, Chelsea, would go on to have two extra children – Hardee thought he was set for fulfillment after his observe profession ended.
He discovered new roles and new functions – as a household man, a observe commentator for NBC and a high-performance coach. He felt he had turned the web page so effortlessly.
Maybe too effortlessly.
Hardee concedes he struggled to voice his issues. It was tough to let anybody in – not his spouse, who may have supplied her personal insights as a retired world-class pole vaulter, or his mates, a few of whom additionally solid comparable profession paths as elite athletes.
Hardee mentioned that in retirement he didn’t make the most of any of the mental-health providers which have turn out to be more and more obtainable via the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Track and Field, each of which performed a job in his coaching over time.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” he mentioned of the advantages of the later counseling he underwent.
“You can plan and plan and plan, but unless you’ve been talking to a professional and you’ve been really working just on yourself – and this isn’t about a job, this isn’t about having a fallback plan, this isn’t about a safety net. This is about your soul and your consciousness.”
Now, a yr after his darkest second, issues feel and look completely different across the Hardee family.
Some of the images and memorabilia that had been stashed away in closets or dusty corners, lest they carry up reminiscences of the profession he was attempting to go away behind, are re-emerging. One of his favourite footage – of him throwing a discus – now has a first-rate spot close to the piano.
To one of many world’s most finely tuned athletes, a person who needed to grasp not one, however 10 completely different occasions to turn out to be a two-time world champion, the straightforward act of putting some reminiscences of his profession again into the foreground represented one in every of his most consequential breakthroughs.
“It took a while but I got back on my feet,” mentioned Hardee, who additionally opened up about mental-health struggles in a podcast titled “Life Beyond The Game” with former NFL offensive lineman Joe Hawley.
“And then once I was on my feet I regained my balance. And then once I regained my balance, I started looking up. And after I started looking up, I started to climb out. I’m at a place right now where my head is above the edge of the well or the cave and I’m breathing fresh air again.”
“I can see the sun,” he mentioned. “I can see life.”
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